


Stirrings

by SueG5123



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-07-27 22:34:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16228673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SueG5123/pseuds/SueG5123
Summary: The nerve of her—the unmitigated arrogance—to turn down his show—as if it wasn’t good enough for her.





	1. Careless Love

As Will joined Charlie at a window table, he noticed that a Diet Coke and glass of ice already waited for him. 

The AWM Executive Dining room staff took pride in knowing the preferences of their clients.

Charlie wasted no time on formalities. “We're gonna try Elliot out at 10:00.”

“With the right EP, he'll do great.”

“I think so, too, and I know how much he appreciates your lobbying for him. He really looks up to you.”

“What's this got to do with where my staff went?”

“He's taking your staff. Well, strictly speaking, he's taking your EP and your EP's taking your staff.”

“Wait, Don's going with Elliot?”

“Don asked to go.”

“He asked to go?” Will’s indignation rose to match his incredulity. “I get that there are moments, _very infrequent_ moments, mind you, where I'm not the easiest guy to work with—“

Barely containing his mirth at Will’s struggle with composure, Charlie administered the _coup de grace_. “I’m hiring a new EP for you.”

Now Will positively sputtered. “You’re hiring—you—without my meeting him—“

“Her.”

“Without my meeting her?”

“No, you’ve met her.”

Will’s gasket finally reached terminal velocity. “Charlie, have you hired to run my show, without consulting me—“

Barely containing a grin, Charlie took a sip of his drink and finally showed his poker hand. “Tried to. She turned me down.”

“Turned you— _down_?” Will took a moment to consider his narrow escape, then recalibrated. 

_The nerve of her—the unmitigated arrogance—to turn down his show—as if it wasn’t good enough for her._

Charlie paused to drain his bourbon and signal to the waiter for another. “I did my damnedest to convince her. Fast car. War stories. All the usual bullshit, you know—“

“Yeah, yeah. The bailing water analogy.” Will had heard most of Charlie’s homey aphorisms before. “But she turned you down?” 

It was unclear if Will was surprised or if he simply wanted additional reassurance on that score.

“Said she had another offer.” Charlie ran his finger around the rim of his glass, still waiting for the second drink. “But—frankly, she didn’t look like she was getting offers. In fact, she didn’t look—“

Will bit at the bait, guardedly. “Like what?”

“Well—sober.”

“ _MacKenzie_?” Will laughed in spite of himself. “This is MacKenzie McHale we’re talking about. Paragon of _professional_ virtue,” adopting a properly mocking tone on the operative word.

Charlie shrugged. “What can I say? She was wearing sweatpants at a bowling alley at eleven on a Tuesday morning. Two empty beer bottles on the bar in front of her. What other conclusion should I draw?”

“ _MacKenzie_ ,” Will still insisted, as if the answer was contained in that name alone.

The older man leaned forward. “You keep saying that, Will, and I’ll be damned if I can figure out whether you’re surprised or—pleased in some sick way.”

“It, uh, just seems out of character. The Mac I knew, anyway.”

_But you never really knew her, did you,_ a voice echoed in his head.

“Last I heard, she was with CNN,” Will began, trying to muster a convincing amount of indifference.

“They let her go.”

_MacKenzie_? CNN let _MacKenzie_ go?

Will didn’t give voice to it this time, but Charlie nonetheless read it on his face, so Will dug deeper for the nonchalance he wanted to project. “Wasn’t she doing good work? I mean—“

“The best. Filing stories from fucking caves. Shot at in three different countries. Two Peabody awards, one RFK award.”

“But they let her go?”

“Yeah. Fucking crazy, isn’t it?” Charlie sighed and checked his watch. “Well, I’ve got two interviews this afternoon to find you a new exec. Kathy Sutton from Fox at 2—“

Will made a face.

“—And Jerry Peters at 4—he’s at NPR now, but has bounced all over cable news. One of them ought to do the trick.”

“For my show?”

“That’s the general idea.”

“I need to be in those meetings, Charlie. I have approval over my executive producer.”

“You would think so, wouldn't you? But Business Affairs went through your whole contract and _na-da_.”

“I don't have contractual approval?” 

Shake of the head.

“I'm gonna renegotiate my contract right now,” Will thundered, rising.

 

But Scott had been unavailable, so contract renegotiation became an empty threat, and it was nearly an hour later before Will’s thoughts returned to the earlier portion of his conversation with Charlie. The part about—

MacKenzie.

The account Charlie gave didn’t seem possible. So out of character.

Well. So what?

Was he supposed to care if she’d become a drunk?

Perhaps she’d had all the makings even when they had been a couple. In retrospect, it seemed like he had never known her at all.

He hadn’t overtly wished her ill, but it certainly seemed fitting that she was reaping what she’d sown. Karmic, in fact.

He tried to recall the particulars of their last encounter, the one where she confessed to screwing around on him. He wanted to remember the exact words she used, so that he could take satisfaction in (possibly) them being used against her.

Strangely, though, he couldn’t remember the precise words. They should have been burned in his memory—but they weren’t.

Very strange.

No matter, he told himself. MacKenzie was finally getting her just dues. It might be cruel to take pleasure in her having been cast low, but he appreciated that the scales had at last been evened. 

_Do dirt, you get dirt_ —wasn’t that the phrase?

He put it out of his mind again and went to the first rundown meeting, so he could harangue Don publicly about choosing to go to the other team.

Glancing at the clock after the rundown meeting, Will found he had time to crash the interview Charlie had with the NPR producer. Scott was still unavailable, and actual contractual bluster was off-the-table, but Will could still act the part. Aggrieved anchor, not getting his due.

 

Jerry Peters was round-faced and sandy-haired, with a hairline that didn’t bode a long existence. He had small white fingers that limply returned Will’s handshake—all the firmer for a subtextual display of who would really be in charge of any future professional relationship—and appeared a tad off his game now that the anchor had inserted himself into the interview process. Peters had believed he was on safer ground with only the news division president present.

Charlie permitted Will to interrupt the proceedings without revealing that he hadn’t been invited.

“How’s the fit at NPR?” Charlie asked, after the handshakes and introductions had been completed, and the three of them had taken chairs.

Peters made a stagey wince. “ _Comme ci, comme ça_. It’s been kind of crazy this spring.” No doubt, he referred to the embarrassing incident where the head of the news division had publicly terminated a news personality for on-air insensitive remarks. It had set off an industry firestorm, ending with the news president’s own resignation.

“We heard,” Charlie acknowledged, trying to stay in the middle without being caught there. “Tough period.”

“Jerry, I need an EP.” To Charlie’s consternation, Will cut immediately to the chase. 

“Let’s just talk a bit, first,” Charlie interjected, in an attempt to get the interview back on track and restore his own advantage. He shot Will a warning look before turning back to the other man. “You’ve only been at NPR for a little over a year—and, unfortunately, a rather tumultuous year for them. Before that, you were—“ Charlie flipped through papers on his desk, “freelancing for Stars and Stripes—“

Peters heh-hed. “Interesting assignments, but I couldn’t pay the bills on that miserly stipend.”

“—And before that, you were in the field with CNN.” Charlie put the papers down and looked up. “Why’d you leave CNN?”

“Brutal rotations. Once they learned your competency level, CNN would just suck you into a maw of never-ending deployments with staggering deadlines. Nearly two years there and it prematurely aged me.” Peters laughed nervously. “Anyway, CNN found its superstar in the field and pretty much let the rest of us know there was no advancement for the rest of us. Funny how that turned out, though.”

“What do you mean?” 

“The anointed one. She fell from grace somehow. Summarily shown the door, was what I heard.”

“Who—?”

“McHale. MacKenzie McHale.”

Will’s head popped up from scrolling through his phone messages. He and Charlie exchanged a glance.

“She was great. Exceeded every expectation. Wrote copy on her hands, cut segments in her head. Spot-on every time. Why, she could reassemble a video-cam the same way a grunt could reassemble his rifle. In fact, I’m surprised you aren’t talking to her about _News Night_.” Peters shook his head and hitched up a corner of his mouth into a laconic smile. “Maybe I should shut my mouth, huh? I want this job so I shouldn’t give you any ideas.” More nervous laughter.

Although he desperately wanted to pursue the tantalizing comments of Jerry Peters, Charlie steered the conversation back to philosophies on production and content. Will seemed to follow along, posing a couple of what-if scenarios to expose probable editorial biases.

After a leisurely hour of conversation that rarely felt like an actual job interview, Charlie rose and the others followed suit. Time was up.

“Thanks for your time today, Jerry. We expect to make a decision soon, so you’ll likely hear something from us in a couple of weeks.”

“Great. It’s been good talking with you.” He shook hands all around and turned to leave.

“Jerry?” Charlie called him back. “Uh—just out of curiosity—just because I have some other openings in D.C. and L.A.—can you tell me any more about this MacKenzie McHale?”

Jerry Peters’ face clouded, as if he realized she might be real competition to him still. “Look, I don’t know how to contact her. I don’t know where she is. She might be dead for all I know.”

However speculative the conjecture, Will still swallowed hard.

“Like I said, I have a lot of positions,” Charlie repeated, trying to cultivate a casual, off-handed tone. “Just following every lead, you know.”

Peters caught the drift now and set about to lower expectations. “I may have laid it on a bit thick earlier. All that woman-of-steel stuff. When I first met her, three years ago, she looked awfully fragile. Had her arm in a cast—“

“Some injury on assignment?”

“Nah. She showed up that way on the first day with CNN. An accident, she said, but I remember there was some talk at the higher levels even then that perhaps she wasn’t going to be able to handle the field. It isn’t for sissies, you remember,” Peters added, trying to play to what he divined was Charlie’s sweet spot. “Lots of equipment for the field, and there aren’t any grips out there.” 

Peters could have left it there, but after a pause, he added, “She did it, though. Made a habit of defying your preconceptions, you know. So, by the time the thing happened in Islamabad, we were just a little surprised that she had gotten that sloppy.”

“Sloppy? What happened in Islamabad?”

Peters voice took on an edge at the continued inquiry about a potential professional rival. “You guys do news here, right? You didn’t hear about a CNN journalist taking a knife in the belly?”

Will blanched and Charlie answered for the both of them. “No. So that was McHale?“

Peters nodded. “And that was the beginning of the end for her, I heard. Never got things back together after that.” He shrugged and affected a thousand watt smile. “Thanks again. Looking forward to hearing from you, Charlie, and I hope we get to work together, Will.”

As soon as he was out the door, Will turned on Charlie.

“Were you doing that on purpose?”

It being well past five o’clock now, the older man had gravitated to the decanter. “I was genuinely curious. I mean, I saw her the other day, and I wanted to know how to reconcile what I saw with what he had been saying.”

“What you saw? Charlie, what you saw was MacKenzie’s decaying orbit. Inevitable and of no interest to me.” Will crossed his arms and sniffed. “I’d rather talk about Jerry Peters and whoever else you—“

“Damn it, Will.” Charlie slammed the lid to the ice bucket in frustration. “The guy just told you that someone you used to know—used to care about—is having a tough time. Lost her job—took a stab wound on assignment—“ 

He noticed Will wince slightly at that phrase. Precisely as he had intended. “She’d evidently even taken the job on while at less than one hundred percent.” Then, musing aloud, “Signing up for field work in Afghanistan with a broken arm—“

_—Grabbing her wrist—_

“—And you two did great work together years ago, I’d love to see that sort of fire at _News Night_.” 

Ice cubes hit Charlie’s glass with a sharp, discordant chink.

“Yeah, well, you won’t. Not MacKenzie.”

“She told me as much. That you would never agree to it, and that it was personal, not professional.”

“Did she give you the particulars?” Warily.

“No, but she didn’t have to. You’re doing a pretty good job right now.”

“Charlie, she ripped my heart out while it was still beating. Dribbled it down the court before the slapshot at the goalpost.”

“Mixing some metaphors there, aren’t we?”

Will marshaled his annoyance. “Can we just move on and find the best new EP for my show?”

“You already know who the best is. And yet, you’re willing to settle for someone else.”

 

Back in his office, Will scrolled through his contacts list, unlit cigarette between his lips. There had to be someone other than Sutton and Peters, someone who would jump at the chance to work with—

“I found the video you wanted to see. It’s in your file on the server.” 

Ellin, or Karen, or whatever her name was, stood in front of his desk, plainly uneasy at her proximity to her actual boss. “And, I think—that is, I’m pretty sure—that you can’t smoke in here.” She offered a self-deprecating little smile. 

He picked up the Zippo and lit the end of his cigarette, watching her steadily. “Thanks for letting me know.”

She practically curtsied in mortification on her way out the door.

Will’s hand hovered over the computer mouse, but he found himself unable to call up the video to which his assistant had referred. He didn’t want to see it; it was only important to establish a timeline.

Perhaps he should call that guy Jerry Peters. Ask some more questions. Like, when did he first meet Mac—the exact date? Had she had any explanation for the cast on her arm?

_And which wrist?_

Because Will was having unsettling flashes of remembrance.


	2. Dreams Die Upon Waking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Except that—there’s this—this moment—in my head—I keep replaying a moment, a single moment and I—I, uh, can’t advance it. It just keeps looping through my head and keeps me awake. It’s like I’m forever on the brink of something, but I don’t know what comes next.”_

Two weeks later, god’s honest truth gossip made the circuitous route from hair-and-make-up to Keefer and then to Charlie Skinner and back to Will that the latter’s appearance on air was deteriorating. Even an old-timer like Herb was overheard to make unfavorable comparisons between Will and the recently deceased.

Charlie attributed the bags under Will’s eyes and the hollows in his face to off-duty revelry and reflexively hurled a thunderbolt from the 44th floor to “get it taken care of.”

Which was what led Will to return to the brownstone offices of Abraham J. Habib that he’d avoided for considerable time now, owing to Habib’s insistence on actual doctoring. The interval between visits, however, had been significant, and more so for Habib than Will.

The elder Habib had passed on. A younger Habib was operating under the family professional shingle.

No matter. From Will’s perspective, this would be a short transaction, and it would be all the shorter for Will having had some history with the practice.

Following the unsteady truce of who he was and why he was practicing in his father’s stead, Jack Habib dove headfirst into the troubled waters of Will McAvoy.

“So what's going on?” 

“I need something to help me sleep.”

By its succinctness, it sounded honest. Still, Habib wanted more.

“Why?”

“I can't sleep.”

“Why?”

“I don't know.” Will rasped the words now, incensed by this process and now sincerely wishing he’d just gone to his internist instead.

“You're still taking Effexor?”

“No.”

“Clonazepam?” At the shake of the head, Habib continued down the list. “Ativan? A few years ago, you were on 135 milligrams of Effexor - plus Clonazepam and Ativan at bedtime.”

“I was cured.”

“What, like a laying on of hands at some evangelist’s tent revival? A visit to Lourdes?”

Will gave an acid expression. “Yeah. Exactly like that.”

“Any significant changes to your normal routine, diet, or activities? Any extra stress at work?”

“ _No_ stress at work. Absolutely none. In fact, I’m getting a new EP—executive producer,” he clarified, with the tone of someone translating for the hearing impaired, “and I think he’ll probably work out fine.” Will’s arms locked across his chest, daring the other man to question his assertion.

_Probably. A Freudian slip?_

“And there’s been nothing else?”

“No.” Except the shift in his gaze gave him away. “Except that—there’s this—this moment—in my head—I keep replaying a moment, a single moment and I—I, uh, can’t advance it. It just keeps looping through my head and keeps me awake. It’s like I’m forever on the brink of something, but I don’t know what comes next.”

“As the songwriter wrote, most of the things we worry about never happen anyway. It’s pretty common to rehearse troubling scenarios before they—“

“No. This happened, I’m sure of it. I just—I just can’t remember the details.”

Habib dropped his chin in thought briefly, then turned to cabinet and rummaged through a drawer.

 

_Rage._

Rage was his foremost memory of the last encounter with MacKenzie.

There had been confusion in the beginning, when he struggled to understand what she was saying. That it was a confession, not an aside—that it had significance and weight apart from her soft, halting voice.

That he had been played as a fool.

Once he understood the import of her words, the rage consumed him, burning white hot, crowding out every other thought.

Rage at her duplicity. Deceit. Perfidy.

_The betrayal._

It hadn’t been some victimless indiscretion.

“How many times were you thinking of him when you were with me?”

_It wasn’t that way—it was never that way—you—_

He read it in her eyes, the tiniest flicker of fear, and he hated it even as he advanced to capitalize on it.

“You just want to clear your conscience at my expense.”

_Please don’t do this—you don’t understand—I love—_

“Don’t say that. You don’t get to say that, not now.”

He wanted to stop those lying lips, bruise them, repay her faithlessness.

Then, the pictures began to form in his head. Images of MacKenzie with that other man—of the two of them—a heaving knot of flesh, writhing on a bed, or against a wall, or—

That was when Will began to respond outside his own will.

_Billy, I—_

“Don’t call me that. Not now,” he ground out, pressing her back against the wall with the force of his fury. 

And at that, the memory always began to collapse upon itself. 

 

Habib placed a bulging folder on his desktop and reached for a pen. Confident the young doctor was finally readying to write the prescription, Will stood expectantly in front of the desk.

A full minute went by.

“Any kind of sleeping pill will do,” Will nudged. 

“What’s really eating you, Will?” Habib put down the pen.

“I just told you, I’m having trouble—“

“Sleeping? Or remembering? Which is it?”

“Well, I’m not the doctor, but I assume that one is related to the other,” Will retorted.

“My father kept really detailed notes. So, let’s go back to when you were originally prescribed the Clonazepam and the rest of it.” Habib flipped through a few pages. “It was about three years ago—“

“Two years, ten months, three weeks.”

“That’s—um, _really_ precise,” Habib noted mildly. “Well, okay. Two years and almost eleven months ago. What was going on in your life then?”

“It’s right there in front of you—“ 

“MacKenzie?”

“Yeah.” Will’s irritation was obvious.

“You had just ended your relationship with—“

“ _She_ ended it.“

“—MacKenzie, and you were experiencing mild depression. Understandable. “ He rifled through more papers, finally reaching one of such interest he folded back the others. Glancing up, he could see Will wince. “And given your—history,” Habib was careful to resort to euphemism, “it’s understandable that there would be other issues.”

“I know what you’re looking at and you’re wasting your time and mine. It’s old news. Ancient, in fact. Anyway, there’s absolutely no connection with that and anything happened between MacKenzie and me, or how it affects me not being able to sleep.”

Habib leaned back in his chair and folded his hands. “So, let’s talk about why you can’t sleep.”

“They make pills for that, you know.”

“Not for the talking part, and I have to insist that comes before the writing of the prescription for the pills. Humor me.” He shrugged. “Any idea why you suddenly can’t sleep?”

“I thought that was why I came to you.”

“What I mean is, why now? You were sleeping fine, what, three months ago?” At Will’s nod, Habib continued. “Two months ago? One? When did this start?”

“Last week.” Something about the admission made Will pause.

“You know what triggered the insomnia, don’t you?”

Will exhaled a pent up breath in acknowledgement. “I mean, in retrospect, it’s so obvious. Charlie Skinner—president of the news division—came to me last week and suggested MacKenzie as my new EP.”

“I can imagine the reaction that provoked. Now, go back to what you were saying about the memory on loop in your head.”

Will sighed and rubbed his palms on his jeans. He, too, thought that fragment of memory was key, but he wasn’t sure how close he could approach it without—what? _A harsher realization? Self-indictment?_

“It all goes back to—that is, when MacKenzie told me, when she confessed that she’d—“ he stumbled already, “that she had—cheated—on me with her old boyfriend. I was so angry.”

“Anger would be a normal reaction. There are a lot of emotions at work at such a time—emotional hurt, betrayal, perceived humiliation—“

“You’re missing the point—or I’m not making it clear enough. It wasn’t just me being mad, hurling accusations and invective, or even shutting down in some kind of self-protection mode. I was angry in a way that I had never been before, that I’d only—“ 

Habib tilted his head back, eyes narrowing. “Go on.”

“Witnessed.” Will paused for a long moment before resuming. “I’ve never been that angry before myself, but I’ve seen it—“ he nodded at the file on Habib’s desk, “and for a moment, it was almost like I was outside myself. As if I was watching and not participating.” He shook his head and stopped, regrouping. “Now, there’s this—this gap—and I can’t remember—“

“A dissociative episode.” The young doctor turned his hands upward with a smirk. “What did you think, that there wouldn’t be any fancy psychological terms to justify the fee today?”

“Care to tell me what it means?”

“Sure, but you may not like it. Short answer—it’s a coping mechanism, somewhat dysfunctional but, in the end, simply a coping mechanism. It’s a way to emotionally step away from the situation that is causing the distress. This type of self-imposed amnesia is a means of avoidance—it transports you away from the feeling of powerlessness.” He reached for his pen again and began turning it in his hand. “Memory can be capricious: selective and protective.”

“Fuck this.” Will stood and took a step toward the door. “I can just go to my internist and get a damn pill, and—“

“Go ahead.” Beat. “Except you don’t just want a pill, do you? You want—“

Will had stopped, hand on the door knob.

“—You want peace of mind. You want to know what happened during the missing time.”

Will turned, clearly hopeful. “Is that something you can do? Hypnosis or something?”

Habib barely stifled a laugh. “Hypnosis? Why, you want to quit smoking? Hypnosis isn’t truth serum. It can help some people reduce distress or help shed a bad habit, but, I’m not a proponent and, in any case—it doesn’t recover lost memories.”

“Nice to know you won’t have me crawling on all fours and barking like a dog.” 

Despite the snide comment, Will still stood at the door, making no move to leave the office, and Habib recognized that as—possibly—a willingness to entertain other options.

_Like simply talking._

“Adult survivors of past abuse often experience difficulties in relationships with others,” Habib began.

“That’s it. I’m out of here.” Will’s hand closed on the doorknob and he jerked the door open.

“Ask her.”

“What?”

“If you want to know what happened—if you think she knows—ask her.” Habib shrugged. “Look, Will, I can diagnose your insomnia, even treat it, but I can’t restore what you’ve misplaced. If it’s that important to you, why don’t you simply—“

Will mimed pulling a phone from his breast pocket and bringing it to his ear. “Hi, MacKenzie. Long time, no see. By the way—did I happen to break your arm the last time we were together?”

Habib froze. “You hit her?”

“What is it they say—biology is destiny? Well, look at your file. Surely you could have guessed that the sins of the father—“

“Answer my question, Will.” Habib did not look like a man to be screwed with at this moment.

Will sucked in a breath through his teeth. Then, closing his eyes, “I think I hurt her.” His demeanor made plain that he wasn’t merely speaking of hurt feelings now. “I think—I may have done something awful.”

“You injured MacKenzie?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Will raised his eyes. 

Habib sat back in his chair, clearly surprised and disturbed. 

“So, you see, I can’t just call her up and—“

“Was she aware of your… your family situation?”

Eyes narrowed, Will responded warily. “Not really—I didn’t tell her much, I didn’t want to scare her off, you know, and by then it was a thousand miles and thirty years away.”

“As if distance has much to do with it.” After a long pause, Habib finally spoke again. “I understand now why it might be awkward for you to call her up and ask her what happened. That break up was rough. Obviously, you cared a great deal for her and it was a great emotional shock to hear what she told you. But I want to ask you to step outside that pain for a moment, just one. I want you to consider that word you used earlier. Confessed. What does it suggest?”

Impatiently. “That she did something wrong. Look, she wanted to break up. I should have seen it at the time. This was just her way of—“

“That would be an admission, or a declaration. Not a confession. Look, you’re a smart man, Will, and we both know that you used the correct word the first time.”

Will held his tongue but his response was plain in his expression. We’re playing word games again?

“A confession has different a meaning than those other words.” Habib shifted in his chair to lean forward. “You’re Catholic. What does confession mean in your faith? Isn’t it connected to repentance—an acknowledgement of having done wrong and a willingness to do penance? Doesn’t it have something to do with seeking forgiveness?”

“At my expense!”

“I daresay she miscalculated her confession to you. That she obviously thought the sting of telling you would be offset by the strength of your relationship.”

“Miscalculated,” Will repeated bitterly.

The young doctor held out a piece of paper. “Your prescription for a sleeping aid. Only slightly stronger than a glass of warm milk, by the way, and for a very limited time.”

Will looked dubious. “You changed your mind, then? About my needing to talk to her.”

“Not at all. But the only action within my discretion is to grant you a short term reprieve from sleeplessness.” Habib closed the open file and spun in his chair to return it to the file cabinet behind him. “I still think you want to know, however, and I still believe there is only one way to know for sure. What you need to ask yourself is whether your reluctance stems from reversing roles. Allowing her the power to deny you something.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“Then, ask her.”


	3. Next Time You See Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I’m glad to see you’re back. From wherever you were.” He omitted the ‘you look good’ line he’d rehearsed in his mind on the way here, because she didn’t and he was sure she would recognize it for the bullshit it was. “Charlie Skinner told me he’d talked to you last week, and—“_

The bowling alley was comfortably empty and dark on a weekday morning, and fairly quiet, with only infrequent crashes of balls into bowling pins. Will had been standing near the bar for a full minute before she noticed.

Even with the look of recognition crossing her face, she still didn’t speak.

“Mac?”

There followed another long moment of quiet appraisal, then, “It _is_ you.” She looked back to her beer, trying to affect disinterest. “You were in the neighborhood, I suppose?”

“Interview at the State Department this morning.”

“And so you thought you’d check out the bowling lanes for—what, deep background?”

He ignored the jibe and nodded toward the maple-planked bowling lanes. “How’s your game?”

“I’ve been told I need to keep my wrist straight, so I’m working on that.”

He winced, involuntarily, then tried a new tack. 

“I’m glad to see you’re back. From wherever you were.” He omitted the _‘you look good’_ line he’d rehearsed in his mind on the way here, because she didn’t and he was sure she would recognize it for the bullshit it was. “Charlie Skinner told me he’d talked to you last week, and—“

Placing both hands on the bar in a gesture equal parts resignation and annoyance, she said, “You don’t have to worry, Will. I told him it wouldn’t work. I said no.”

“Can we sit and talk for a bit?”

“I _am_ sitting,” she deadpanned.

“Perhaps somewhere more private?” he suggested, with a side look at the bartender idly watching a game show on the oversized monitor. “Let’s go over there,” he said, indicating a small booth in the snack area of the bowling alley.

Warily, she followed, carrying the open bottle of beer. “This seems like a lot of trouble when I’ve already told you I—“

“I just want us to talk for a few minutes.”

“Talk,” she grumbled, sliding across the bench seat. “You could have done that three years ago.”

“I’m doing it now,” he shot back, immediately regretting his tone. This was supposed to be a conciliatory meeting. So, he took a deep breath and tried to begin again, minus the adversarial edge.

“Mac, I want to talk to you. I need to say something to you.” 

In the new light, he noticed that her hair was dull and pulled back in an unkempt ponytail. Her eyes, too, seemed flat and red-rimmed with fatigue. She was in uncharacteristic, casual attire that seemed too big for her, hinting that she’d lost some weight since he’d last seen her. 

This didn’t seem like the Mac he remembered.

But her head canted in a familiar way and she met his eyes grimly, as if bracing herself.

He faltered under her expression and searched for a diversion.

“How about lunch?” 

“I’m having beer.” She lifted the bottle.

Will flagged over the counter attendant. “Menu?”

The guy jerked his thumb over his shoulder to the board affixed to the wall, above the large grill, where broken and mismatched letters spelled out a very limited bill of fare. Grease and carbs were offered in abundance.

“Okay. Diet Coke. Make it two,” he added, glancing at Mac’s present beverage of choice. “Hamburger, with lettuce, onion, no pickle, no tomato. Fries. Oh, and bring mustard and mayo, because she does this _thing_ with the fries—“ Will stopped. It was a little quirk of hers that had suddenly come back to him. 

Mac looked at him oddly.

“Chips. No fries.” Having delivered that important clarification, the attendant turned his back, heading for the grill.

“So what’s this about, Will?”

“I thought you could use some food.”

“Goddammit, Will. I turned him down. If he told you anything other than that, he’s playing his own agenda.”

Will frowned. “Who?”

“Charlie Skinner. Isn’t that why you’re here? He came here last week and made a pitch for me to come to ACN. But don’t worry, I said no. No hedging, no misunderstanding. You don’t have to worry that I’ll be crashing your gig.”

“I’m not worried.”

She averted her eyes. “Well, then—if Skinner gave you some pathetic tale of finding me—are you here for the satisfaction of seeing it in person? Surely, you aren’t here from some misguided sense of charity?”

“You should eat,” Will admonished, apropos of nothing. It was a way to change the conversation and return the momentum to him. “You’ve lost weight since the last time I—“

“You came all the way here to, what? To tell me to eat my lunch?”

His large hands flexed and contracted into loose fists, a sub-textual guide to the frustration that was beginning to churn inside. “Mac—I want to say—I came to say—I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry?”

“God, yes.”

“For what?”

That took him by surprise. _Because he wasn’t sure._ He needed her to confirm what had really happened, but he didn’t want to cede the upper hand. That he didn’t remember. That he had this—this thing—this _family disease_ —and it might have infected him, and—

“For the way I was that day. You remember. I was angry, but you didn’t deserve that.” He dropped his eyes. “And I wanted to make sure you understand—well, now—that I am sorry. I know I was wrong and I’m seeing someone—“

“Seeing someone?” she repeated uncertainly, clearly misunderstanding, new injury clouding her eyes.

“Not that way—I’m seeing a doctor,” he clarified. “Habib—actually the son of my old guy, but that’s another story.”

“Great,” she said, taking a pull from what was surely (by now) a very warm beer. “You were angry. You’re sorry now. Okay, I’ve got it. Apology accepted. Now, _go_.”

Serendipity entered with the grill attendant delivering two Diet Cokes, a plate of food, and the requested condiments. As a seeming after thought, he threw a bag of chips on the table as well.

Mac took another defiant sip of the beer.

That put that ball back in Will’s court.

“ _Kenz_.” An under-handed move, exploiting their previous relationship, but he couldn’t afford to leave any advantage on the table. “Please.”

She pushed the plate away and dared him, with her eyes, to remark upon it.

Her demeanor cowed him, because it was so unlike the MacKenzie he had known. More and more, it seemed to be confirmation that he had done the unthinkable, that he had—

She huffed a bitter laugh. “You didn’t wreck my life, if that’s what you’re thinking. I did that all by myself.”

“I didn’t—I never—“

“Will, I don’t even understand why you’re here, why any of this merits your _presence_ , or your actual attention, because you’ve been ducking me for years—“

“Mac—“

“—And I’m just so godawful tired now, tired of being defensive, tired of trying to protect myself from the indignities of love or whatever the hell else there is between us now.” She lowered her head. “You said you’re ‘ _glad to see I’m back from wherever I was_ ’—well, I’ve done as you asked, Will. I stopped saying, _I love you_. I removed myself as far from you as I could. So, please, take your pitiable glances and your soft words and just go away.”

She broke her eyes away and looked down, to the top of the table, clenching her teeth onto her lower lip. Another characteristic expression that came back to him.

In the awkward silence that followed, he reached for the bag of potato chips. Any prop in a storm. So he opened the bag and shook out several chips for which he had no appetite.

“I—I, uh—I’m not here to—and anyway you shouldn’t—“ He paused to let the word vomit die, as it deserved, before starting anew. “I heard—there was a _thing_ in Islamabad and you were injured. But you’re okay now?” He sounded querulous enough to seem to need the reassurance. 

“Yes, there was a _thing_.” Then, softening somewhat, she acknowledged, “I’m okay,” without volunteering further details.

“I’m glad of that, Mac. I never wanted—would never want—“ His voice broke off. “Well. You know.”

“I don’t know anything, Will. I think I never did.”

He persevered to the desired topic. “I talked to someone recently—someone who knew you at CNN, when you were on that assignment. All good,” he inserted quickly, trying to stave off the inevitable deprecating comment, “and your work there was highly regarded. But he said something else and it got me thinking and I—“ 

This was tack was agonizing, so he abruptly changed. “You remember, when we were—together—I didn’t have much contact with my family—“

She listened, uncertain where this was going but not willing (yet) to challenge the course.

“You never asked but you must have been curious. Growing up—well, my home life wasn’t conventional. It was—I guess the word that would be applied now would be _dysfunctional_. Abusive. My father drank a lot and he was a mean drunk. Mean to my mother, mean to us kids.” He waited to gauge her reaction.

“Oh, Will.” With eyes that slanted in sympathy.

“I want to give you some context, some perspective.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I told you I’ve seen Habib recently. Two visits last week, and another appointment scheduled for this week, when I get back to the city, because he’s right, there are issues in my past I need to deal with.”

“It helps to talk, sometimes,” she agreed, quietly.

“When you can say the right things. To the right people.” He took a deep breath, moment at hand. “Mac, I’ve found recently that I couldn’t remember the details of our last—the last time you and I—and it’s been driving me crazy, so that’s why I went back to Habib. He’s evidently some kind of fucking psychiatric prodigy but he called it _traumatic amnesia_ , the reason why I couldn’t recall everything that had happened between us, and he seemed to think it was related to, you know—what happened when I was young.”

He slid forward on his elbows. “Mac, I can’t put it all in order, that last time we were together, when you—“

“Fucked everything up,” she finished for him, bitterly.

“Yes— _no_ —I mean, what you said devastated me. I was hurt, I was angry, I was terrified of losing something so precious.” He broke off before resuming. “And I’m doing it again—rationalizing my feelings instead of confronting my actions. I really want to make amends, to tell you how sorry—“

He tried to hold her eyes this time. “Mac, I find myself in much the same position you did—and I know that I gave you no forgiveness then, so it’s pretty hypocritical of me now to expect that you would—“

Believing she had guessed where this was leading, she now frowned at the sudden left turn in the conversation. _What was he saying? That he, too, had been carrying on an affair back then?_

“I know about your arm and all. Charlie interviewed Jerry Peters for the EP slot at _News Night._ He said he had met you in Afghanistan and your arm was in a cast and that was just days after we broke up. So, I have to tell you how sorry I am, now that I know, now that I’m aware. Because now I think I am capable of that kind of anger and abuse, that it’s in my nature—“

That focused her. “It isn’t. What you’re talking about isn’t hereditary, not like blue eyes or—“

“It’s a learned behavior. And I need for you to know that, in my heart, I’m so, so sorry and ashamed of hurting you—“

“Stop, Will.” She paused. “It didn’t happen like that. I broke my hand leaving your building. I was upset—some might say mildly hysterical,” she qualified, in an ironic aside, “but in any event, I wasn’t paying attention. I ran into a passerby on the sidewalk outside and took a spill. So, you and your shrink should drop all the nefarious conjecture.”

He pulled back, off-balance. “But I remember grabbing—“

“Everything that happened that day was my own damned fault, Will. I don’t know what tale your _wunderkind_ doctor has convinced you of—but he’s wrong. You’re wrong. Don’t let other people write your narrative. Or mine.” That was pointed. “You didn’t hurt me that night, if that’s what you’re thinking—at least, not that way.”

He looked uncertain. 

After a few moments, he said, “Your food’s gotten cold. I’m sorry. I should’ve taken you out for a proper lunch. Tablecloths. Actual menus.”

“Still not hungry,” she said, with a wan smile.

“Well, that’s a problem, because I think you could use a good meal. You look awfully thin, Mac.”

“As the late Duchess of Windsor once said, a woman can never be too rich or too thin.” Mac smiled thinly.

“Apologies to the Duchess, but I would argue that point.” He looked at his watch.

“You’re free to go now.”

“It isn’t so much wanting to go—it’s just that I’ve got a flight to O’Hare at 4:30. Charlie put me on some media panel at a journalism school tomorrow.” His mouth turned up at the corner. “All I have to do is stick to the middle-of-the-road and let the right and the left slug it out.”

“That is absolutely what you should _not_ do,” she said, reaching past the bottle of beer for the Diet Coke.

 _A start_. He considered it a minor victory.

“I have to go or I’m going to miss my plane.” He stood and shoved his hands in his pockets, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “It’s been—good, really good to see you again, Mac.” The protracted lull that followed hung awkwardly as he considered what else there was to say and how to end this encounter. Finally, he managed, “Thanks for listening. I—uh—“

“Hmm?”

“Oh, nevermind.” He plunged his hands further into his pockets. “Take care of yourself, okay?”

“Yeah.” She nodded, her eyes caged and unreadable once more.

He took a few steps toward the exit before stopping. He abruptly about-faced and paced back.

“Wait.” He slid a business card across the table. “I know you’re serious about working on your game and all, and I know you turned down his spiel once already, but—I really think you should give Charlie another call.”

That took her aback.

“To what end?”

“To whatever happens, Mac.” Tapping his watch, he again eased to the door. “Whatever, you know, _happens_.”


End file.
